CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA.- The Ackland Art Museum presents today “Sea & Sky: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics,” on view through January 4, 2004. In anticipation of our celebration of Japanese art this fall, the Ackland recently purchased several contemporary Japanese ceramics. Works by four artists with differing artistic personalities will present a dialogue on past and present innovations in ceramic form and function. Designated a National Living Treasure in 1955, Hamada Shoji (1894-1977) was the leader of the mingei folk art movement in Japan. Across the shimmering surface of the Ackland’s new square flask, potted in 1965, Hamada splashed a sensuous turquoise glaze evoking the suggestive accidents of the abstract expressionist era in which is was fired. The sleek horizontal ceramic sculpture by Fukami Sueharu (b.1947) floats as if poised in flight. Shaped out of porcelain—a clay long associated with finest ceramics of East Asia—Fukami’s aerodynamic sculpture reminds us of western sculptures of the 1930s evoking the idea of machine made perfection. In striking contrast to the Fukami work, the black tea bowl by Tsujimura Shiro (b. 1947) reminds us of the Japanese taste developed in the Zen Buddhist tea ceremonies for the appreciation of artistic personality expressed through evidence of the hands of the artist on the ceramic tea bowls. Sea forms, like shells and corals, are among the inspirations for Koike Shoko (b.1943). Her gray stoneware vase appears as if created by the sea, caressed with iridescent blue and creamy white glazes delighting viewers as they discover its hidden cavities and subtle surface textures.